Now, I know this may be one of those things that's more noticeable to us auto writers, what with our sex-worker-like hopping from car to car, but we do see a lot of dashboards. And certain controls seem to be placed with the careless abandon of a thrown dart. What control needs a standard placement?

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There's lots of possibilities here — I'm not sure a rear defroster/defogger button has ever been in the same place on two different vehicles, and modern infotainment systems insistence on making the volume controls an exciting tactile guessing game is particularly anti-delightful. But I think the hazard light switch may be the worst offender.

It's almost never in the same spot on any two cars, though there has been a general trend to move it centrally. It's also the button you want to hit most when you're flustered or in a mild panic. They are called the hazard lights for a reason.

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They're also fun to hit, since they flash. I remember being a 5 or 6 year old in my dad's old '68 Beetle with my sister and getting yelled at by a passing stranger because we were playing with the hazard light knob. It was so hard not to pull, all red and flashy.